Buying American Cars What Does It Mean?

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My sister's 05 Forester rides and drives better than my '97 Outback (lot of it is that I just like higher seating positions for road trips). But it sounds like the '05s don't really compare to how the new Foresters drive.

Stockman is especially severe on his former House colleague Dick Cheney, who as vice president insisted: &#147;Reagan proved deficits don&#146;t matter.&#148;

&#147;There are big questions about how good Dick&#146;s view of foreign policy was,&#148; Stockman tells me, &#147;but his possible errors there are nothing compared to how far off base he was in economic policy. That is a clueless statement, and symptomatic of why I hold the Republican Party so responsible for the mess we&#146;re in. The Republican Party is supposed to be the conservative party. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the irresponsible party. But somehow we lost that.&#148;

Still considering a 500 Abarth; the dealer has offered me a perfectly optioned(no NAV or hole in the roof, but with heated seats and upgraded audio) for $2k off sticker. I stopped by my local Ford dealer and asked a sales guy when they would have a Fiesta ST in stock and received an unenthusiastic "I dunno." No great loss, as I don't think I could bring myself to buy a car with an "Assembled by the UAW" decal on the window. I also want to look at the BRZ/FR-S twins. Nothing else new interests me- for under $40k, anyway...

But we give tax break after tax break to some people under the guise of trickle down and job creation, and none of it actually takes place. I think a lot of people have been sold a pile of magic beans.

The bubble (that being unsustainable growth with no foundation in a mirage economy) was born and expanded under elephant leadership. It kills me how some who preach accountability can't even pin it on their bitter political party. Where are those economic plans of salvation?

The election of 2004 was also founded in fear. Someone proved that fear sells. You're right that neither party is the answer. I know the reality - you'll get war no matter who is elected, because corporations control politics, not vice versa.

Those who deal with the often sinister game of defense contracting and then hide out in tax havens are the worst of the worst, absolute hypocrisy.

Both my daughters have cats... Really, its more like 2 cats each have 1 of my daughters.

My older daughter's cat stays with us when she leaves town on business/vacation. When at home, he's the most pleasant cat you'd ever know. When she is out of town and he's here with us, he maintains an incredibly surly attitude.

His name is Ollie, but my wife calls him Dick Cheney cat when he's here...

Some economists argue that the gains are a natural part of the business cycle, rather than a sustainable recovery in the sector. But I would argue that the improvements of the last three years aren&#146;t a blip. They are the sum of a powerful equation refiguring the global economy. U.S. factories increasingly have access to cheap energy thanks to oil and gas from the shale boom. For companies outside the U.S., it&#146;s the opposite: high global oil prices translate into costlier fuel for ships and planes &#151; which means some labor savings from low-cost plants in China evaporate when the goods are shipped thousands of miles. And about those low-cost plants: workers from China to India are demanding and getting bigger paychecks, while U.S. companies have won massive concessions from unions over the past decade. Suddenly the math on outsourcing doesn&#146;t look quite as attractive. Paul Ashworth, the North America economist for research firm Capital Economics, is willing to go a step further. &#147;The offshoring boom,&#148; Ashworth wrote in a recent report, &#147;does appear to have largely run its course.&#148;

According to analysts, the young voters, those highly gullible and influenced by campaign rhetoric, determined the outcome of last November's election.

Would those be the same analysts that kept predicting the other guy was going to win?

Funny how when "the other guy" gets elected, its always by "gullible" voters, regardless which party he's from... That's so amusing to me...

Putting it in car terms, it reminds me of those that praise one model for being so well assembled, then blasts a "sister" model for incredibly poor construction discipline... Ignoring the fact that both cars are assembled on the very same line, by the very same workers.

Funny how when "the other guy" gets elected, its always by "gullible" voters, regardless which party he's from... That's so amusing to me...

I do lament the demise of the GOP. I also am saddened by the vehicles built by the domestics with UAW labor. All part of the downhill slide I am seeing in our beloved country. Some here are optimistic. I hope they are right.

Overall voters are uninformed and gullible. I doubt one in five know the names of their Senators and Congress person.

Overall voters are uninformed and gullible. I doubt one in five know the names of their Senators and Congress person.

Back when I was young and in K-12, we were taught civics classes, and learned all about our government, its branches, the presidential cabinet, and so on.

I don't know if civics classes are still taught, but I DO know that we have a very large segment of high-school graduates that don't seem to know much about any of this. As far as your 1 in 5 ratio, I'd guess its significantly higher, probably like 1 in 20. From a political standpoint, most just parrot what they hear from their parents, without every giving what they hear any objective analysis at all.

I used to ask 1 or 2 questions to my daughter's friends that were in college when they would come over to visit once in a while, and I was shocked when I realized just how little they knew.

Analysts paid for by Daddy's Wallet and Ebenezer? Link it or it didn't happen. Some people who were so silent under the misdeeds of the previous group (so similar to today's loser leaders) are so loud now. Bitterness isn't healthy.

Overall voters are uninformed and gullible. I doubt one in five know the names of their Senators and Congress person.

No. Not "overall". Jay Leno and Fox interviews show that young voters are mostly stupid. Young. Young are easily conned, impressionable and easily swayed by teachers, in high school and college. Young students who have zero life experience, not paying taxes, not having a household are least qualified to make decisions on who should be picked to run our government.

Young are easily conned, impressionable and easily swayed by teachers, in high school and college. Young students who have zero life experience, not paying taxes, not having a household are least qualified to make decisions on who should be picked to run our government.

Oh, it isn't just young folks.

Take a trip to your local shopping mall and start surveying folks entering and exiting of ANY age and ask them simple questions, such as how many cabinet positions there are, who is the Secretary of the Treasury, etc. and see what answers you'll get.

But, you're correct in one thing. Young people really don't have enough experience to avoid danger, be it physical, financial, whatever. That's why the military loves 18 year olds. They don't yet have a real sense of mortality, so they'll run head first into danger. Every army wants inexperienced soldiers. Experienced personnel would better understand when they're being told to die for, in many cases, to further someone else's financial well being.

Others may disagree, but IMO, if we can ask a guy to possibly die for his country, he certainly should have the right to help select the ruler who's sending him to his potential death. It's a spin on the old saying "No taxation without representation". Maybe we should refer to it as "No expiration without representation".

For organizations like the UAW, attitude doesn't matter as it's all seniority-based.

I understand the principles of seniority for OT, Vacation and shifts. For promotions it should be merit based. It was some of the work rules that have hurt the domestics. Not being able to shuffle workers around to different positions. The stand against automation may have hurt them the most. The other automakers operating in the US built state of the art factories. The UAW blocked the D3. So Ford built their state of the art factories in other countries. The short stint Rocky had at GM put him working on equipment that was WW2 vintage and prone to breaking down.